Chapter Twenty Three
"Emma!" Regina called upstairs, for the third time that morning. "Hurry up! You're going to be late!"
It was the first day back to school since Christmas break, and also, coincidentally, it would be Emma's first day in grade three, since she was now too old for grade two. Moving up after the break seemed like the most reasonable option.
Normally Emma didn't sleep over at Regina's on school nights, but Mary Margaret had wanted to get into school extra early that morning to get settled after the break, and David had the early shift at the station, and Emma was more than willing to go on an unexpected sleepover at Regina's.
After a few moments of silence, Regina let out an exasperated sigh and headed up the stairs to see what was taking Emma so long this morning. She guessed two weeks really was a long time to be out of a routine, considering Emma aged nearly six months in that short time.
She was surprised, however, to find Emma still in bed, the covers pulled up to her chin and her eyes squeezed shut.
"Emma, I can tell you aren't really sleeping. Why aren't you getting ready for school? You're going to be late."
"Can't go to school," Emma said, keeping her eyes shut. "Don't feel good."
Regina sighed again, and stepped over to sit on the edge of the bed, reaching out to feel Emma's forehead with her wrist.
"You're not warm," Regina commented.
Emma opened her eyes. "I don't wanna go to school."
"Why not? You love school."
Emma simply pouted and shrugged under her covers.
"Emma, if something is bothering you, you need to tell me in words if you want me to help you."
"You can't help me," Emma said, as her pout grew bigger.
"Well, I could try?"
Emma shook her head again, looking like she was on the brink of tears.
"Emma, please just tell me what's wrong," Regina insisted, as she pushed Emma's hair back from her forehead.
Emma sighed. "I don't wanna start grade three. I don't know anybody there and I won't have any friends."
"True, but you will make new friends, just like you did in grade one and grade two. I know it's not easy but-"
"You don't know!" Emma insisted, pushing Regina's hand away from her hair and sitting up, looking at Regina with accusatory eyes. "You can't know what it's like to just finally get settled and then boom! Everything changes again and you're lost and you have to start over and I have to do it over and over and over."
"Oh, Emma," Regina said, unable to help the pained looked that came over her face just then. She really couldn't understand what it was like to be in Emma's place right now, but she could only imagine that changing grades rapidly and constantly starting over with a new group of kids she didn't know probably reminded Emma a fair bit of her old life in the foster system.
"Maybe I just shouldn't even go to school," Emma reasoned. "'Cause I already went once, so what's the point?"
"Well, if you don't go to school, your other option is staying home with Granny and Neal every day."
"But I could just stay with you? Like before..." Emma suggested, hopefully.
"But I have to work," Regina reminded her. "So staying with me would mean spending your days at my office. Is that what you want?"
Emma thought on that for a moment, before finally shaking her head. "No. Your office is boring. I'll go to school. But I don't wanna go to dance tonight."
Regina let out another sigh. "Why not? All the same kids will be at dance."
Emma shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. "I'm not very good at it."
Regina shook her head with a small smile. The kid really wasn't all that rhythmically inclined, just as Regina had assumed she wouldn't be, but she and Snow had been nothing but encouraging because Emma had been so insistent that she wanted to try dance.
"It's not about how good you are, Emma. You know that. It only matters if you enjoy it."
"Well there's another thing…" Emma said, looking at Regina seriously. "I'm soon going to be too big to stay in the class I'm in, and I can't move up because I won't know how to do anything 'cause I didn't get to stay in my other class long enough. I won't be able to do it and it's not fair."
"Emma-"
"No! You're not listening!" Emma insisted. "It's not fair! None of this is fair to me. Everyone keeps telling me it's my second chance, but it's the worst second chance ever because I don't even get to really have it. Everything goes by so fast and soon it's just gonna be all over."
"What do you mean 'all over'?"
"I mean… Lily said I'll be back to my real age when her baby is a toddler. So it will be done and my second chance will be all over and it's going by too fast already."
"Oh, sweetheart," Regina sighed, scooting closer so she could pull Emma up onto her lap. "Nothing's going to be over when you grow up. Things will just stop going by so fast, but you'll still be here, with me and Henry and your parents. None of that will change. The only thing that will change is you'll stop aging so quickly."
"Can't you just make it stop right now?" Emma asked, quietly.
"Make you stop aging? Emma… I can't," Regina said, squeezing Emma close to her in a tight hug. She wasn't lying - she wouldn't know the first thing about stopping something she truly didn't even understand - but even if she could, she knew she wouldn't. Stopping Emma's aging and letting her live out her childhood from here on out would mean she would always be younger than Henry and he would never get his birthmother back, as his mother. Regina knew, without a doubt, that the adult Emma would never want it that way.
"It's okay," Emma said, softly. "But I'm still not going to dance. I'll go to school."
"That's my girl," Regina said, placing a kiss on Emma's hair. "You don't have to go to dance. I'll try to think of a way to make things better for you, okay?"
"Kay."
Emma was sitting on the bench outside her classroom waiting for the bell to ring to end the lunch period when Snow walked up.
"Emma, sweetie, why aren't you outside playing?"
Emma shrugged. "Don't feel like it."
Snow nodded, and sat down next to her daughter. "Regina called my on my break this morning and said you were having a hard time about moving up to grade three."
"It's okay, I guess," Emma replied, looking down at her feet. "My teacher is nice, but I don't have any friends and there's no point in making any 'cause I'm just gonna switch grades in a few weeks anyway."
"Well, I thought you might be interested to know that there are track and field tryouts going on after school tonight," Snow continued.
For the first time, Emma looked up, mildly intrigued. "What's track and field?"
"Running," Snow answered, with a smile. "And I happen to think you'd be quite good at it."
"You do?"
"Of course I do," Snow replied, putting her arm around Emma's shoulders.
"Well, I'm am kind of fast," Emma acknowledged.
"You're very fast. And do you want to know the great part about running?"
"What?"
"It doesn't matter what age you are, anyone can run. You can run when you're eight, nine, ten, fifteen, twenty-five… it's all the same."
A small grin started to spread across Emma's face. "So it doesn't matter how fast I grow? I won't fall behind?"
"Exactly, baby. So what do you say?"
Emma nodded eagerly. "Are you gonna watch me?"
"Of course I will."
"Can you call Gina and tell her to come, too? Since she doesn't have to take me to dance tonight?"
"Yes. I'm sure she will be happy to be here."
Snow gave Emma one last squeeze as the first bell rang. "I have to go back to my classroom now, sweetheart. But I'll see you tonight."
"Bye, Mommy."
After school, Emma stood nervously with the other kids, waiting for tryouts to start. She scanned the crowd of onlooking parents a few times but failed to spot her mother or Regina, and she was quickly becoming discouraged. She thought back to all the times in her old life, where she remembered attending school events - trying out for teams, being in plays or Christmas concerts - where all the other kids had their parents there, cheering them on, and she wondered what that might feel like.
Sure, from time to time she'd have a foster parent who would attend, and even some that smiled and waved from the audience, or wished her luck or told her she did well, but it just wasn't the same. She wanted to feel what that would feel like from someone who actually cared about her.
For a moment, Emma thought she might cry when it was her turn to go, but she took a deep breath to regain her determination. She was no crier. Her life here might be worlds apart from her old life, but she still remembered how to be tough. And she knew she was fast. She could do this.
And her mother had said she would be good at it, so Emma just had to remind herself that made maybe she'd just got caught up with something after school, and maybe Regina was in a meeting or stuck in traffic - not that Storybrooke had traffic - but she would have been there if she could.
Emma didn't need anyone watching her. She was going to do it anyway.
So when her turn came, she ran like hell, and it felt good when her feet hit the track beneath her. She felt so free. And for a moment, she forgot about spells and fairies and foster homes and second chances that didn't feel like second chances and she just ran, easily passing all the other kids like it was what she was born to do.
And when she crossed the finish line first, she stopped and rested her hands on her knees, looking at the ground for a moment, catching her breath, until she heard someone calling her name.
Emma looked up to meet the smiling faces of not only her mother and Regina, but her father as well, and she couldn't help the overwhelming emotions that overtook her as she ran over to them.
"You guys came!" Emma cried, as she flung her arms open and attempted to hug all three of them at once.
"Of course we came, sweetheart," Snow said, with a shake of her head. "I had to go find your father wandering around the school to show him where the track was, and Regina got held up a little at a meeting, but baby you know we wouldn't have missed this."
"Did you see me run the whole time?" Emma asked, her eyes quickly darting between those of the three adults looking at her.
"The whole time," Regina said, with a smile. "You were amazing, Little One."
Emma beamed and nodded. "Uh huh. This is way better than dance. I'm good at this."
"I knew you would be," Snow agreed, giving Emma another quick hug. "Now you've got to head back over with the other kids, tryouts aren't finished yet. I promise we'll all be right here watching, okay?"
"And maybe we'll pick up Henry afterwards and head over to Granny's to celebrate with rootbeer floats afterwards?" David suggested, with a wink.
"But what if I don't make the team?"
"Then we'll just celebrate being a family," David said, with a shrug. "That's worth celebrating, isn't it?"
Emma smiled and nodded, before heading back over to the group of kids. She supposed that really was something worth celebrating, afterall.
To be continued….